Unibot token slumps 40% amid schism between project’s Ethereum and Solana devs

Unibot’s token fell more than 40% today as news emerged of infighting between its Ethereum and Solana developers of the popular Telegram trading bot with over $1.1 billion in volume.

Unibot’s Ethereum developers said they had ended their collaboration with their Solana counterparts, accusing them of reneging on previous agreements.

The Solana group confirmed the split, announcing plans to rebrand from Unibot’s Ethereum team.

Unibot is a Telegram trading bot on both Ethereum and Solana. It first emerged on the Ethereum mainnet last May, followed by a Solana deployment in January.

Unibot users, especially those who use the Solana-based iteration, now find themselves in the lurch.

Today’s split is the latest problem to rock Unibot, which was previously hacked for $5.6 million last year. These problems have contributed to the project falling further behind its major rival, Banana Gun bot.

Unibot and Banana Gun bot belong to a class of projects that allow crypto users to trade tokens using only a few simple commands on Telegram.

Telegram bots have evolved into a crypto niche in their own right and boast a $1.6 billion market capitalisation, according to Coingecko.

Apart from trading, several bots also share revenue with users, and some of them help traders automate airdrop farming activities.

Unibot developers lance accusations

The Ethereum developers behind Unibot accused the Solana group of a breach of trust because the latter also launched a version of the bot on the Blast blockchain without its approval. Blast is a layer-two blockchain built by the same team behind the NFT marketplace Blur.

Unibot’s Ethereum developers accused its Solana counterparts of refusing to undergo the KYC identification process, too.

As such, the Unibot Ethereum team demanded the Solana group change its name which is currently Unibot on Solana.

Following the split, the Unibot Ethereum developers launched a Unisol X frontend for users on Solana as an alternative to the Unibot on Solana bot. They decided to launch a second front because they are no longer working with the Solana group.

Responding to Unibot’s accusations, Reethmos, the pseudonymous Unibot on Solana builder, said the split would not affect its users.

Reethmos countered Unibot’s statement and accused the Ethereum developers of engineering the split because the Solana team blocked their access to the bot’s revenue.

“They farmed $30 million from tax farming but apparently it wasn’t enough,” Reethmos said on X, formerly Twitter. Tax farming is the practice of levying fees on token swaps, and Unibot’s Ethereum developers earn 40% of the tax imposed on trading the token.

Unibot generates revenue across all chains, which is shared among token holders. To qualify for the revenue share, holders must hold at least 10 Unibot tokens.

Of the $53 million in cumulative revenue the bot has generated, $48.2 million has been realised on the Ethereum deployment.

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. To share tips or information about stories, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.